When he first arrived in Stamford in the early 1980s as a young planner tapped to lead the city's urban renewal effort, Jack Condlin was told that the place to eat was Tino's, a luncheonette on the corner of Bedford and Spring streets.

While the food, which consisted of standard diner fare, was considered good, it was the scene that drew regulars. The Greek family-owned restaurant, which had been around since the '60s, was a well-established political hangout, drawing real estate attorneys, city hall workers and those in the know.

"People would say if you were gone for a month, all you would need to do was to go to Tino's for lunch and you would get caught up," said Condlin, who now serves as the president of the Stamford Chamber of Commerce.

Like their counterparts in New York, the captains of industry, developers, lawyers and politicians in Stamford were once avid power lunchers. These were the days before vibrating cellphones and email, when expense accounts were flush and the "three-martini lunch" was a literal term, not an allusion to the Mad Men era. During this time, a select group of downtown establishments, ranging from informal dish-clanking diners to upscale white-table-clothed private clubs, served as the face-to-face meeting places where businesspeople in the city networked, cut deals, exchanged gossip and satisfied their need to see and be seen.

In terms of prestige, there was no bigger testament to the city's power lunch scene than the Landmark Club, a private establishment that opened in 1974 on the 22nd floor of the Landmark building. It was Stamford's tallest structure until being eclipsed by Trump Parc, the luxury condominium tower, in 2008.

Aside from the eye-popping views that stretched as far as Manhattan, the restaurant, with uniformed servers and private dining rooms, offered the allure of exclusivity. Entry into the dining space was restricted to members.

According to Thomas Rich, whose late father Robert Rich built and operated Landmark, the club's original board of governors consisted of "CEOs and `higher ups' who ran the quickly growing group of locally based corporations."

`Bygone era'

Beginning in the 1970s, Stamford drew a large mix of Fortune 500 companies, including Pitney Bowes, GTE, Xerox, International Paper and Clairol, to name a few.

Sandy Goldstein, president of the Downtown Special Services District, who came to Stamford in the 1970s and worked her way up the political rungs until she ran for mayor in 1991, called Landmark, which closed in 2003, "the last vestige of a bygone era."

"That was the place to go," she said. "It was quiet, it was discreet and it had good food."

Although not a member, Goldstein said she dined there frequently as a guest. But among the city's little-known secrets was that the club would in fact admit anyone who could pay in cash.

Closer to the city's courthouse, JR's Cocktail Lounge, formerly known as Lucy's Diner, became a popular haunt for lawyers and corporate types as well as an impressive array of celebrities, including Joe DiMaggio, Henry Fonda and Bert Parks, host of the Miss America pageant.

Stephen Hoffman, a developer who began working in Stamford in the mid-'60s, recalled lunching at Hugo's on Summer Street. The Rotary Club of Stamford used to meet there, he said, in addition to bankers and other local business community members.

Faded etiquette

Like many in the business community, Hoffman said his days of power lunching are long over. His observation was that the city's lunch culture has adapted to a fast-talking and health-conscious set. Most places, he said, are trying to get diners in and out as quickly as possible.

"No one is pushing martinis and wine," he said. "Everyone is sitting eating a nice salad and chicken with no gravy, and drinking a club soda."

Power lunches, he added, have been replaced by digital and phone exchanges. "We're emailing on the run, texting on the run, cell-phoning on the run. The etiquette of the business lunch has really faded."

The rise of corporate cafeterias and executive dining rooms staffed with first-rate chefs has been another contributing factor.

For Michael Marchetti, the owner and chef of Columbus Park Trattoria, the pre-digital era represented halcyon days for restaurateurs. The family-owned and operated restaurant opened its doors in 1987.

"There was no Internet, no cell phone. No one was hounding you," he said. "You told a secretary to put a sign on your door, and you went out and had your lunch."

The recession has also taken its toll. Gone are the days of a $200 bottle of wine. Business diners, he said, are wary of racking up large lunch tabs that will be charged to their employers.

As Hoffman suggested, restaurants like Columbus Park have had to change their operating strategy. In the interest of ensuring quicker service, he now employs more people despite serving fewer customers. Whereas in the past he had four people preparing between 60-70 lunches, he now needs as many as six people in the kitchen just to make 30 lunches, he said.

Downtown restaurant logjam

With so many people declaring that the power lunch is a thing of the past in Stamford, the irony is that the city's downtown has never before been so jam-packed with restaurants. According to the DSSD website, there are now more than 90 restaurants and eateries. Still, when asked, no one could cite a particular place as having a power lunch scene. Most said they preferred to have lunch at their desks.

"People are having lunch," Condlin said. "I think maybe the power lunch is still there. It's just changed a little bit."

He, for one, said he has not abandoned the tradition entirely. When he is meeting someone for the first time, he will make an effort to arrange a lunch meeting.

"It allows both people an opportunity to relax and to have a conversation so we can understand who we are and what we are about," he said, adding reflectively, "It's one of the things we don't have anymore."